The Angels are Bowling.

We're having thunderstorms this morning-- the first raindrops to fall out of the sky since Hurricane Ike blasted through Galveston, Clear Lake and Houston, then marching further north. Ever since Ike, we've had picture-postcard weather-- blue sky, puffy clouds, tropical breezes that swayed the palm trees. Speaking of palm trees, not one palm fell during Ike. Same for the magnolia trees... they were all spared and they're as pretty as ever. Sadly, the oaks and the pecan trees perished during the storm and forever changed the landscape on the streets where they had stood for more decades than I could count.

But this morning, we are having pouring-down rain, thunder and lightning. And the angels are bowling.

When I was a kid, I was afraid of thunder. Lightning was tolerable... I had decided that it was sort of magical when my room lit up with the flicker of lightning. Sort of like the fireworks at the beginning of the Walt Disney programs on Sunday nights. But the thunder-- I didn't know what caused it, I didn't know why it was so loud, and when it thundered at night I would scream and hide under the blankets. My dad would come into my room with a pencil and a pad of paper, telling me: Listen! The angels are bowling and we have to keep score!

Daddy would draw ten bowling pins, in the formation that they'd be in at the end of the bowling alley. He would put numbers on each of them, and then at the bottom of the page, he would quickly sketch out the frames for a bowling score. As each clap of thunder rattled the house, we would point to the pins and decide which ones the angels knocked over-- sometimes just the 6 and the 10, other times it would be the 4, 7 and 8. There would be spares and strikes, depending on the loudness of the thunder. Before I knew it, I would be forgetting that I was afraid of the thunder and we'd be sitting on the bed, or on the floor near the windows, waiting for the next bowling bowl to hit the pins.

When the storm either settled down or moved off, daddy would add up the score and we would decide whether the angels were good enough to join the bowling team that he had with the other bus drivers at his depot. I remember going to sleep with that score-paper, waking up with it wrinkled and creased, and showing the other kids on the block how the angels were progressing with their bowling practice. None of those score-papers have survived.... but I can see them in my mind's eye.

Always, the morning after the angels' bowling game, I didn't think I would be afraid of the next thunderstorm. After all, it was just the angels up there, bowling and having a good time. Right? Wrong. The next time it thundered, I would be under the blankets and crying and screaming because the sky was falling down and the house was going to get smashed. Into my room came my dad..... paper and pencil in hand..... That was a spare! No, no... my mistake... they left the 7 and the 8. Listen to that one! That had to be a strike!